[1] Prior to his appointment to the bench, he was senior litigation partner at Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP in Toronto and was one of Canada's leading barristers.
In addition to a busy commercial litigation practice, Paul acted for clients on arbitrations, white collar criminal and regulatory matters, constitutional, media and public law cases.
For thirty years he represented Canada’s major media organizations on defamation, copyright, access to information and free expression matters.
(citations needed) In June 2018, Paul completed two years as the 66th Treasurer (President) of the Law Society of Ontario,[2] the regulator of the province’s 50,000 lawyers and 8,000 licensed paralegals.
As Treasurer and Bencher of the Law Society, Schabas advocated the controversial imposition on all Ontario lawyers of an obligation to expressly affirm a Statement of Principles on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion or be sanctioned by their regulator.
[9] From 1976 to 1978 Schabas attended the School of Music at Indiana University (Bloomington) where he studied French Horn with Philip Farkas as a student in the B. Mus.
His first major trial was as Mr Manning's student in Regina v. Morgentaler, Smoling and Scott, in which a jury refused to convict three physicians for operating an abortion clinic in downtown Toronto in violation of Canada's Criminal Code.
As a student, and subsequently as Manning's Associate following his Call to the Bar, Schabas was co-counsel on the landmark decision of the Supreme Court in the same case which struck down Canada's abortion law under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in January 1988.